


Unconditional

by ozuttly



Category: Kamen Rider Ex-Aid
Genre: Bad Parenting, Coming Out, M/M, Trans Male Character, also good parenting, outing (sort of)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:07:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21699736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ozuttly/pseuds/ozuttly
Summary: “Hey, Director, do you know anyone called ‘Kagami Sayaka’?” Emu asks innocently. Hiiro’s stomach does flip flops as he stares at the plate of cake in front of him, but his appetite is entirely gone. It’s all he can do not to bolt out of the room and throw up.In which Hiiro gets a letter from his estranged mother. Haima is not happy about it.
Relationships: Houjou Emu/Kagami Hiiro/Kujou Kiriya, Kagami Haima & Kagami Hiiro
Comments: 1
Kudos: 32





	Unconditional

**Author's Note:**

> This story contains a character feeling put on the spot to out himself before he's ready, hence the outing tag. If that triggers or makes you uncomfortable I advise skipping this fic.

It all starts with a letter. 

Hiiro is sitting in the CR’s break room, eating his cake when Emu comes in, hands full of documents and a perplexed look on his face. Kiriya is lounging on the couch, reading a magazine about motorcycles, while Hiiro’s father is having an animated discussion with Poppy in the corner. Emu smiles at Kiriya, then sets his documents down on the table next to Hiiro’s cake. 

Hiiro glances at them by reflex, and notices the letter sitting innocently on top. He only sees it for a second before Emu picks it up, but the name on the return address is already enough to make his stomach turn and his mouth go dry. He wants to snatch it out of Emu’s hands before he can even look at it, but Emu is already holding it up to his father with a confused look on his face. 

“Hey, Director, do you know anyone called ‘Kagami Sayaka’?” Emu asks innocently. Hiiro’s stomach does flip flops as he stares at the plate of cake in front of him, but his appetite is entirely gone. It’s all he can do not to bolt out of the room and throw up. 

Haima stops talking to Poppy immediately, his face straining to smile but tightening far too much around his eyes. Kiriya looks up from his magazine, but Hiiro can’t tear his eyes away from the cake in front of him. He doesn’t want to know what kind of face his father is making, though he secretly hopes it’s one of anger, and then immediately feels guilty. 

“Why do you ask?” Haima asks politely, though his voice sounds taut, like a bow string pulled so tight it might snap. 

There’s a curtain of silence that hangs in the room, and Hiiro is terrified to break it. He wants to get up, to excuse himself, but he finds he can’t bring himself to move. Emu looks a little nervous, like he’s pulled the pin on a hand grenade without realizing it and doesn’t know how to react. 

“There’s a letter here for her, is all,” he says gingerly, holding up the item in question. Hiiro wants to grab it from his fingers, but he doesn’t dare reach for it. “It was left at the nurse’s station. They said it was for somebody in the CR.” 

Hiiro can feel Haima’s eyes on him. He can feel the worry practically radiating from the man, and he wants to reassure him that he’s fine. He’s not bothered by this at all. He can handle one single letter from his mother. But he still feels frozen, like he can’t move, and it’s only when he feels his father’s hand squeeze his shoulder that he realizes he’s crossed the room to take the letter from Emu. 

“A mistake,” he says, though there’s a vitriol in his voice that Hiiro very, very rarely hears. He hasn’t heard it since he was a child, since before his parents divorce, when his father had viciously told his mother that he was taking full custody and that she would have to fight him tooth and nail if she didn’t like it. 

She hadn’t fought. Hiiro doesn’t know if he’s glad or not, that she had quietly disappeared from his life outside of the occasional birthday and Christmas card. 

Hiiro finally looks up to see Emu’s wide eyes, like he isn’t sure if he’s made a mistake bringing the letter up from the nurse’s station, like he should have known. Kiriya is pretending the still read his magazine, but Hiiro catches his curious eye and swallows heavily. 

“Really, Natsuki shouldn’t have sent this here,” Haima says, tucking the letter away into his bag. Hiiro wants to reach for it, take it and read it, but his hand stops half-way through the motion. Haima catches it anyways, and he hesitates for a second before pulling it out and handing it to his son. Hiiro quickly squirrels it away in the pocket of his coat, where it sits like a heavy weight. 

Kiriya seems to catch the movement, though Emu just looks sheepish. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize it was a big deal--” he begins, but Hiiro finally finds his voice, even though it comes out as more of a croak than anything. 

“No. It’s not. It’s not a big deal,” he says slowly. Emu looks at him with raised eyebrows, and Hiiro takes a deep breath. “It’s just. From my mother, is all.” 

Emu blinks, like he doesn’t realize the significance, but Hiiro doesn’t know where to begin telling him. Haima looks between the two of them before he exhales slowly. 

“Sayaka was my first child’s name,” he explains. “Natsuki must have gotten the names on her letters mixed up, because Sayaka doesn’t work here.” 

Hiiro breathes a sigh of relief. His father may be a silly man most of the time, but he can always count on him when he needs to. He’s a far quicker thinker than Hiiro, who is still lagging a bit from the blow of his mother’s mention. 

She was here. At the very least, she didn’t show up in person, but the letter alone was proof enough that she hadn’t changed her thinking at all. Hiiro dreaded to read it, but he knew he would anyways. 

Emu nods at Haima’s explanation, and the older man checks his watch with a frown before he looks down to Hiiro. 

“Well, I’ve got a meeting I need to be going to,” he says with another reassuring shoulder squeeze. Hiiro half wants to ask him not to go, but he would no sooner keep his father from his work than he would any other doctor, so he just nods his head. Haima waits a few seconds before he finally lets go and heads to the door, giving Hiiro one last look before heading out. 

Emu waits approximately five seconds before he turns on Hiiro. 

“You have an older sister?” he asks, and Kiriya has put down his magazine, no longer feigning disinterest. 

Hiiro’s mouth feels dry again, but he stiffly nods his head. 

He knows that he should tell Emu the truth. They’d been dating for about a month now, and he was already agonizing about keeping such a big secret from him and Kiriya. But every time he goes to open his mouth about the subject his throat closes up, and he can’t bring himself to say it. 

“You never mentioned her before,” Kiriya points out, one eyebrow raised and suspicion in his voice. 

Hiiro stares down at his plate and tries to put words together, but they just won’t come. Emu looks a little guilty, and he slides into the chair beside Hiiro, wrapping one arm around his shoulders in a half-hug. 

“You don’t have to talk about it if it’s hard,” he says, and Hiiro nods again. 

“I will tell you,” he says slowly, to himself just as much as the other two. “One day, I promise I’ll tell you.” 

*** 

Hiiro always goes to his father’s house for dinner on Thursdays. This time, with the letter in his pocket, he’s almost dreading it. But he doesn’t want to break tradition because of his mother, and so he goes inside without knocking, as he always does. As he expected, his father is on the phone. 

“...your son! I don’t care how you feel about him and his choices, Natsuki! But you do not go into his place of work, leaving letters addressed to-- Oh, so this is about me now? I’m the bad parent?” 

Hiiro bites his lower lip as he takes off his shoes and puts them neatly by the entrance way. He knows his father doesn’t know he’s here. If he did, he wouldn’t dare be this loud, or this angry, but in a way it’s relieving. It’s nice, having somebody get angry on his behalf, even if it does make him feel guilty at the same time. 

“If you ever do this again, I will have hospital security escort you out on sight! Goodbye, Natsuki!” Haima snaps as he jabs the end call button with more force than he really needs to. Hiiro hesitates in the doorway as his father takes in a deep breath, then shrinks back when he jumps at the sight of him. 

“Oh, Hiiro,” Haima says, pressing a hand to his chest. “I’m sorry, I was just--” 

“It’s fine,” Hiiro says, though he looks very pointedly at his father’s tie rather than his face. 

Haima’s face goes soft, and without any warning he walks over and pulls Hiiro into a tight hug. 

“I’m sorry, Hiiro. I didn’t even know she was back in the country,” he says, and Hiiro feels stiff for a moment before all of the tension bleeds out of his body like his strings were snapped. He goes limp into his father’s arms, and Haima rubs soothing circles into his back. 

“She wants to come to the charity gala,” Hiiro says, the words making him feel numb even as they leave his mouth. He hasn’t seen her in over twelve years. Would she even recognize him, now? There are pictures of him online and on tv, of course, but did she care enough to see them? He tries to tell himself that he doesn’t care about the answer, but he does. 

He still cares so much what she thinks, even though he wishes he didn’t. 

Haima’s arms tighten around him, and it takes a second before he finally pulls away to look him in the eye. 

“You don’t have to see her if you don’t want to,” he says firmly. “Hiiro, you give me the word, and I’ll tell security not to let her in.”  
Hiiro appreciates it. He really, truly does, but at the same time he knows he would feel terrible if he took his father up on it. 

“Is it bad?” he asks, his voice very small and quiet. “If I want to see her?”

Haima’s face softens, and he looks like he wants nothing more than to take his son into his arms and comfort him. Hiiro honestly wants to be comforted, but at the same time, he knows it won’t really make him feel better. 

“I know that she’s still the same person, but I just think that maybe, if I talk to her...” he licks his lips, staring down at his hands clasped in front of him. Haima reaches out and strokes his hair, the way he used to when he was a child. 

“I don’t think it’s a good idea, Hiiro,” he says softly. “But if you want to see her, I’m not going to stop you.” 

‘I just don’t want her to hurt you again’, is what his father doesn’t say. Hiiro still hears it, though.

He knows that seeing her is probably only going to make him feel worse. He knows it, but it doesn’t make him yearn for it any less. He’s still holding out hope that maybe, if she sees him now, now that he’s accomplished so much, she might actually accept him. 

He knows, though, that if she’s going to go to the gala, that he needs to talk to Emu and Kiriya. He isn’t quite sure he’s ready to, but if things go poorly, he wants to make sure that they hear it from him. 

*** 

“So? What did you want to talk about?” Kiriya asks as Hiiro locks the door to his apartment. Emu is sitting on the couch, marveling at the expensive leather furniture and that one avant-garde decorative statue Hiiro had received as a house warming gift years ago. Hiiro knows that this is the first time he’s ever actually had the two of them in his home, but he couldn’t think of anywhere else to do this. 

He opens up his mouth to answer, but the words once again die in his throat. Instead he takes off his shoes and heads to the kitchen. 

“Would you like tea?” he asks, and Kiriya hums. Emu agrees, though, so Hiiro busies himself with the kettle while the other two explore his living room. He hears the television turn on, and he settles into routine as he gets the dish of dainties he’d prepared the day before out of the fridge. Once the tea is made he brings it into the living room, and Emu sighs as he holds the cup in his hands. 

“It sure is getting cold out,” he says, as though he can tell that Hiiro isn’t ready to start the discussion quite yet. Kiriya murmurs his agreement, and Hiiro nods. They continue talking like that, about inconsequential things, until Hiiro finishes his tea and finds that he can’t actually put it off anyore. 

“Sayaka isn’t my sister,” he blurts out. Emu blinks, looking a little confused, and Kiriya hums in a way that could mean anything. Hiiro has the feeling that he might have already figured things out. That almost makes it easier, but he still can’t meet either of their eyes. 

“Is this about the letter from the other day?” Emu asks, and Hiiro nods his head. 

“Sayaka is...” he breaks off, swallows down the anxiety crawling up his throat. Emu and Kiriya are not like his mother, he tells himself. He trusts them, trusts that they won’t treat him the same way that she does. Still, he’s never done this, never revealed this to anyone but his parents, and he can’t help but worry. 

Will this change their relationship? Will it change how they see him? 

“Hiiro,” Kiriya says, and he reaches out and grabs his arm, squeezing it. “You don’t have to tell us.” 

Hiiro draws in a deep breath. 

“I do, though, I have to--”

“Hiiro,” Kiriya interrupts, and his face is soft in a knowing sort of way. “If you’re not ready, it’s fine. You can tell us when you want to, on your own terms.” 

Emu tilts his head to the side as he looks between the two of them, not quite getting it, but he nods. 

“Kiriya-san is right, Hiiro-san,” he says, and Hiiro bites down hard on his lower lip. “You don’t have to talk about something private if it’s hard for you.” 

Hiiro draws in a shuddering breath, and somehow, their assurance that he doesn’t have to tell them makes it easier to finally rip off the band-aid and do so. 

“I’m Sayaka,” he says, finally. Emu tilts his head to the side again, looking confused, while Kiriya rubs his thumb against his arm soothingly. He doesn’t look surprised. Hiiro doesn’t know if it’s a blessing or a curse. “I mean, I’m not-- It was my birth name. I’m...” 

He trails off. It should be easy to say the words. It’s not easy. 

“You’re transgender,” Kiriya supplies for him, and Hiiro realizes that he was clenching his fists hard enough to leave crescent moon shapes on his palms. 

“I’m sorry, for keeping it a secret, I just--” he begins, feeling the words tumble out of him in a rush, but then Emu has moved from the couch to perch on the arm of his chair and is hugging him tightly. 

“No! It’s fine, you didn’t do anything wrong,” he says, and Hiiro goes to jelly in his arms. “You didn’t keep anything a secret, or hide anything, Hiiro-san. It’s ok to keep some things private.” 

Kiriya’s hand trails down his arm to his palm, where he tangles their fingers together. 

“Hiiro,” he says the name deliberately, and Hiiro looks up at his face for the first time. He doesn’t look angry or upset the way that Hiiro had feared, deep inside, that he might. Hiiro knows, logically, that he wouldn’t, but it’s still a relief to see. “This doesn’t change anything about our relationship.” 

He squeezes Hiiro’s hand, and Hiiro finally closes his eyes. 

“I’m glad you trusted us with this,” Emu says as he leans in and kisses his forehead. Hiiro reaches up with his free hand to grab Emu’s, and Emu happily takes it. 

“Does you suddenly coming out have to do with the letter?” Kiriya asks, and Hiiro exhales slowly through his nose. 

“My mother is coming to the charity gala next week,” he says. “She doesn’t… accept that part of me. I didn’t want you to hear it from her.” 

Emu nods like he understands. Kiriya frowns. 

“You know you don’t have to see her,” he begins, and Hiiro is glad that he’s worried about him. It makes him feel a little bit better, to know that these two men he cares so much about still care for him in return. He had never really doubted that they would, but that tiny instinctual fear of rejection had never gone away. It’s nice to see it finally leave now. 

“I know. But I still… I haven’t seen her in twelve years. She’s never met… me, as I am now. I want her to. Even if she doesn’t accept me, I want her to see that I’m not...” He frowns, trying to find the right words. “I’m not dead. I’m still her child, and...” 

Emu snuggles up closer against his side, and Hiiro regrets not sitting on the couch so that the three of them could cuddle together. 

“I get it, Hiiro-san,” Emu says softly, and Hiiro vaguely remembers what he’d told him about his own home life. If anybody could understand shitty parents, it would be Emu, and Hiiro leans into his embrace. 

“...Thank you,” he says, so quiet it’s barely audible. Emu looks confused for a moment, before Kiriya leans over to whisper something in his ear. Immediately Emu’s face softens, and he runs his fingers through Hiiro’s hair. 

“You have nothing to thank us for,” he says as he kisses Hiiro’s forehead once more.

**Author's Note:**

> I've not forgotten about my other fanfics in progress, I swear. I just felt the need to write about something a bit more personal for once, to vent some feelings. This will have another chapter coming out soon.


End file.
